


Memories (drown it in ink)

by 7Flyingpancakes7



Category: Ib (Video Game), 約束のネバーランド | Yakusoku no Neverland | The Promised Neverland (Anime), 約束のネバーランド | Yakusoku no Neverland | The Promised Neverland (Manga)
Genre: A TON OF HEADCANONS, Emma is a badass big sister figure, Isabella is the one behind every artwork in the gallery, Ray is one of her painting, Unreliable Narrator, no need to play Ib to understand the plot but still recomended
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25444906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7Flyingpancakes7/pseuds/7Flyingpancakes7
Summary: Ray was tired of this fake world. He wants to escape before he grows mad.
Relationships: Emma & Norman & Ray (The Promised Neverland), Isabella & Ray (The Promised Neverland), Norman/Ray (The Promised Neverland)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 93





	Memories (drown it in ink)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love ib's atmosphere so I wanted to throw the neverland kids in a haunted gallery too! The overall story will be a little different from ib and the most important mechanisms of how the gallery 'works' will be explained, but I still recommend playing the game. Ib it's really good!
> 
> This chapter was supposed to be a small prologue but I got carried away. No beta reader, I'll edit it later.
> 
> Enjoy! :D

His mother spoke to him every day and night. Blurry eyes full of love and pride while she added spikes to his hair, pencil smoothly sliding across his canvas. 

“Ray” She said when his sketch was done “That will be your name. Do you like it?”

Ray was unable to speak at the time, but he liked the name, happy to quietly listen to Isabella’s musings. He loved how her delicate fingers added colors to his eyes, making his vision get better and better with each brushstroke. Adding new colors to his world.

His mother’s face seemed to grow warmer when colored, her eyes bright. Beautiful. Something deep inside him knew the beautiful color was named purple. Her nails got prettier as well. Dark blue.

Ray likes blue and purple. As soon as he got a voice, he asked his mother to put blue or purple on him too.

They spend hours together, his mother hummed when she wasn’t up for conversation, mindlessly filling her studio, their home, with comforting melodies. He tried to sing back when she finished painting his throat and his voice got more beautiful. His attempts got a giggle out of Mama “Don’t move while I work my dear boy, or I might paint your skin blue too.”

He stayed still while Mama painted his scarf blue, warning her his eyes were dry again and letting her give it another layer of details. Smiling while she worked on his irises.

He loves her.

It was lonely to wait for her at night, so Isabella painted him a thick book to read. 

He loves her.

Even when Isabella made a mistake, smudging his left eye pretty badly and filling him with pain instead of energy. He still loved her.

Mama soothed the pain by painting dark blue and green hues over his face. The added ink covering half of his world in darkness, tickling his cheek.

Mama looked troubled while she messed around with his new hair, slowly adding texture to it. Once she took a pause from painting, Ray asked “What happened...? Are you okay?”

“I am good, my hand just cramped. Sorry for hurting you” Isabella said with a small smile “I gave you a fringe to cover the injury. Do you like it, my dear boy?” 

It felt a little weird but he nodded, not wanting to give his creator any more troubles.

His fringe keeps getting more and more layers as the days went by, until it felt smooth to the touch, comfortable in his face. His clothes and fingers were painted with even more care and Ray was certain his mom was doing her best. Happy by how much attention Isabella put on him, working non stop on his limbs’ shading. Slowly he started to feel complete, celebrating with his mother when she declared him finished and humming happily while mom framed his painting. Filled by confusion when she suddenly stopped visiting.

Hours passed. Days passed.

He got used to half of his world being consumed by black, adapting to the partial loss in sight, but not adapting well to being alone in his empty home. Able to pass the time reading but missing the feeling of a warm brush on him, wanting to hear Mama’s gentle voice. Growing desperate the more time he spends alone. Losing more and more of his movements as the hours passed by, until his limbs completely stopped working, turning him into a still picture.

He waited and waited for his mother to come back and give him life, unable to do anything but drown in bad thoughts. Scared that he disappointed his mama in some way. He should have tried harder not to move while she painted him, he shouldn’t have said he was lonely at night and guilt-tripped her into wasting time to paint him a book. He should have talked less.

When her studio door finally opened again, it wasn’t Isabella that came to visit. 

The stranger took him away from his home, covering him in fabric and only allowing him to see the world again when they reached an unfamiliar room full of still pictures. Nailing his frame on a wall.

“Welcome to Isabella’s Gallery” The stranger said with a tired smirk, staring at him for a while and touching his frame in awe and pride “...I hope you’re worth the price, pretty boy.”

.

The gallery was dark at night. Silent and unwelcoming but oddly familiar.

As soon as Ray found himself able to move again, he tried to get out of his frame. Surprised when banging his book against his canvas actually got him to fall out of the cozy space mom painted, hitting the floor of the quiet gallery and leaving drops of ink were he scraped his knee. It _hurt_. The outside world felt weird. But Ray was determined to run away. Needing to get back to his mother’s study, holding on to the memory of her sweet smiles and eyes full of love, certain she would eventually come back for him. That if he apologized, she would forgive him for the hours she wasted painting his book.

He couldn’t find an exit, no matter how hard he tried.

Desperate, he clenched his book and listened to a gentle voice promising to guide him to his mom, following the writing on the walls saying ‘this way’ until he found a big abstract painting named 'Neverland'. The painting was beautiful and unsettling at the same time, something about it hypnotizing. Ray touched the canvas in a trance, feeling his mother’s warmth as he was sucked into the paint.

.

Inside the painting, he felt alive. Everything from the grass walls with dark claws reaching for him to the hanged dolls in the ceiling gave off an unsettling vibe, but Ray could freely move around, feel the grass on his skin and hear his own footsteps. He was free from his frame.

He tried to find his mom in the strange garden but despite feeling her warmth when slipping inside the painting there were no signs of Isabella anywhere, only clueless talking ants and strange sculptures.

He searched every corner, pleasantly surprised to accidentally get too close to a wall but not be attacked, the dark claws touched his face in a gentle manner, one of them pointed at his scraped knee, offering to paint it back. Ray let himself be painted, not feeling any warm while his knee was healed and his pants were fixed, yet feeling the small sting disappear. He awkwardly thanked the hands, unsure if they could even hear him without ears, and marched on, exploring this strange garden. 

Turn out, the garden wasn’t very big. The grass quick to disappear, forcing him to explore an unstable gallery instead, asking every crazy painting and broken mannequin he could find about his mother whereabouts, always being meet with broken necked statues making grating negative noises and painting shaking their head. 

No one knew where Isabella went. Why his mother abandoned him.

A strange sound by his side brought Ray’s attention to the gallery's wall, feeling his ink grow heavy at the fresh words where naked bricks once were.

‘There is no use looking for Isabella. She doesn’t want you’

“That’s not true” Ray frowned at the fresh letters on the wall, feeling unsure but trying to hold on to the memory of his mother’s kind eyes “She always loved me. She must be busy, or sick,” his heart clenched “Maybe even in need of help, but she’ll come back for me.”

Yeah.

Ray grew determined. He had to go back to Isabella’s studio. Go back home.

‘Everyone in this world was created by Isabella. She abandoned us all.’

Ray tried to ignore the mysterious scribbles on the wall. But every step he took filled the walls with new sets of ‘She doesn’t want you’ and ‘She doesn’t want us’

“Stop bothering me” He hissed “Show me the way out!”

‘there’s no way out. This is our home’

He glared at the words, trying to find a way out by himself.

He tried for what felt like hours. Days. Weeks.

There was no exit in Neverland. No windows to see the sky, no way to accurately measure the time.

The more he got used to the paintings of this unstable new world the more desperate he grew, realizing with time that every habitant was very different from each other, but they all smell like mama’s special paints. They all had Isabella’s signature on their necks. Just like Ray have.

The walls didn’t lie. This world was a place all of Isabella’s creations end up. 

She never came back for them.

She wasn’t coming back for him.

Ray had his suspicions for a while but it still hurt to accept reality. Come to terms that no matter how special he felt under Isabella’s gaze he wasn’t her child to spoil and love, he’s just another painting.

Another project to be sold.

It was strange, he should be more shocked about it. He wanted to be angry about it, betrayed at the realization, but he only drowned in a strange cold feeling, unable not to love her. Hoping at the very least, he was a project she genuinely enjoyed painting. One that was worth enough money to buy her happiness.

.

Despite being surrounded by fellow paintings, understanding technically everyone in his new home was his sibling, he felt oddly alone.

For the most part, paintings were friendly in Neverland. They admired and obeyed Ray, doing their best to make him feel welcome. Dragging themselves to Ray, wanting to entertain him by dancing inside their frames and cracking their stiff faces trying to copy his smile. The one time he asked for a song he only received screeches that gave him a headache. The older, more unstable painting always destroyed anything he decided to actually pay attention to. He still remembers the gory sign of ‘The Pianist’, his favorite painting, being thrown in a small vase full of water. The broken vase spilled water all over the canvas, washing his watercolor away and destroying the paper, filling the room with his pained screams and broken piano sounds.

Even the calmer paintings and more docile sculptures' attempts to make him happy felt somewhat… Empty. Not real.

It was a strange thing to feel since Ray isn’t real either but at least, Ray can pretend. Most paintings in Neverland couldn’t change expressions or leave their frames. Even the artworks that moved couldn't open doors like Ray, stuck in their room unless he decided otherwise. All of them felt cold to the touch and barely any of his siblings were able to talk, the few that could were either cruel or always repeated the same things again and again and again and again.

This world grew small after a while. The unstable demeanor of most of his siblings mundane, their madness reduced to a background noise, only serving to make his surroundings even more... Off. With constant draggings sounds and random screeches but no words. No warm. The only thing that could properly communicate were the walls, the gallery itself, and even then… The walls only offered him mockeries or information about unusual occurrences, never up for conversation or playing.

He tried talking with the friendly mannequins but he liked to listen more. Talking and talking but barely receiving answers made him feel detached. Wrong. He preferred to be quiet, aware this gallery was strange, and fearing he would never stop if he talked too much. Grow crazy.

Ray decided to read to pass the time instead. Locking himself in an isolated room and some books, getting lost in pages instead of headache-inducing hallways.

Thankfully, there’s a lot of books in the gallery. 

Each day, he learned more and more about random paintings, pleasantly surprised to find a strange book with some information about this place.

 _'Neverland'_ was Isabella’s first painting, it was based on a recurring nightmare she had as a child, its existence overflowing with madness. It had no exit for its inhabitants, only guests could get out. Human guests. The possibility of getting out sounded like a kindness, yet the gallery would try to kill its guests, locking them inside this ink world and connecting their soul to a rose, so that if their assigned flower lost all their petals, the guest would lose their life as well.

As if losing their future, losing their life, wasn't enough, death in the gallery would also erase their past. Taking away any signs of their existence outside this cursed painting. Even if the guests manage to escape, to win against the gallery, everything that happened while trapped inside Neverland would be forgotten.

It was cruel.

Cruel to its guests and cruel to its inhabitants. For when a real breathing human stepped inside this world, it didn’t automatically create a way out for Ray to escape, the guests would have to cross the whole gallery to trigger an exit. Said exit offering few tickets to the outside. If a pair stumble into the painting, only two people will get out. Same with three visitors or more. If a group come in, only the group would get out.

Unless a future visitor decided to stay in the gallery, Ray would never be able to get out.

He smiled darkly. Like anyone would ever sacrifice their future, their entire _existence_ , for an amalgamation of ink. If he got lucky enough to get visitors he would have to trick them. Make one get lost or die so he could escape.

“You’re a cruel bastard,” Ray said to the gallery's walls, thinking of the gentle mother that created this nightmare painting in the first place and narrowing his eyes at the pages. Unable to deny she was cruel too.

He froze at the last info available about Neverland. Shocked to learn that if he managed to escape, he would turn into a real person. One that bleeds red. Able to cry.

Ray keeps staring at the last info, unable to deny: He wants that.

He _really_ wants that.

He wouldn't hesitate to destroy an innocent guest to be free. Plucking petals out of flowers is easy after all.

Ray hated himself at the realization but he didn't change his mind.

.

Every single painting had an info page somewhere in some book. Ray wasn’t surprised when he eventually stumbled on a picture of himself. The Ray on the page was holding a book with a small smile, looking beautiful. Far more beautiful than Ray had pictured himself.

The painting ‘Ray’ was apparently Mama’s masterpiece. Worth 81194 dollars.

Ray stared at his info page with detachment. Mindlessly absorbing information about himself: He wasn’t based on a dream mama had, much less a real person. He was just a sudden idea, one that took five months to finish. Apparently, mom pictured a 7 years old while painting him. She wanted Ray to be happy and serious at the same time. 

He stared at his happy picture with unreadable eyes, wondering why he doesn’t feel happy. Why he can’t take his own existence seriously.

.

There were rooms with mirrors in Neverland. They always made him feel mocked.

He looked real. Like a person. 

Like mom.

Whatever illusion of life was always destroyed by Isabella’s signature on his neck. He touched the name with a mix of longing and anger. Dearly missing her but aware she didn’t miss him back. Even with all the affection he carried for his mother, he could see she was far from the wonderful woman he viewed her as. The more he rotted in this place, the more he resented her.

He adjusted his fringe to differentiate himself from the image he saw on his painting page, determined to become his own person instead of something Mama wanted. The smudged and melted void were his other eye should be made him feel better. At least with it, he could tell there was only ink in his veins, he wasn’t forced into a limbo of not a painting and not a human.

Ray tucked his fringe behind his ear but it keep slipping back to his face. Sliding like ink. Even when he tried to clip it, it managed to fall, as eager to cover his eye as Isabella was eager to cover her mistakes.

He hated mirrors. Hated his dear mother.

.

Ray got tired of reading. Be it informative books, pretty picture books, confusing adult books, epic fantasy books… Everything was a jumble of words and pictures.

They all grew stale.

The colorful surroundings tired him even more, he felt like wandering these hallways would make him grow mad, so he keep reading anyway. Having long since given up on escaping. 

The days and weeks were impossible to keep track without a sun outside but he could feel the time pass and pass. He could feel his hate grow.

He snapped while re-reading the book mama painted him. Feeling particularly resentful towards her and ripping her pages into pieces. Not feeling the satisfaction he wanted when the thing became unreadable scraps of paper

.

When he finished reading every single book available, Ray was forced to find other things to do. Most days he didn't. He just tried to sleep inside his frame, annoyed to find he was unable to sleep. Other times he forced himself to play hide and seek with the ‘Woman With Braids’. A painting that was unable to speak, but one that could change expression and partially get out of her frame to crawl around, blond braids and pretty limbs. Cold and hard like dried paint. Very clearly a fake person, but a decent sibling. He isn’t sure the ‘Woman With Braids’ can hear him but at least, she hugs him when he felt sad. The cold hold uncomfortably tight but her intentions appreciated.

When he feared to lose his freedom if he stayed inside his frame for long, yet the scribbled walls made his head hurt too much, he forced himself to walk across the _entire_ gallery to visit the black claws that lived inside grass walls, playing every game he read about. Rock, paper, scissors. Clumsy thumbs fight. Creative handshakes.

Some days, he would even say he had fun. Amused by their attempts. Happy to teach a sibling something new, but most days he just felt a buzz in his head. A sense of stagnance, as if he was only born to decay. Repeating the same thing again and again and again.

He wasn't sure if he loved anything in this new home of his. Wasn't sure he was loved by the other paintings Mama created either, but he was aware he was respected, considered to be the ruler of this place. The one that most looked like Isabella. The only one who had memories from when he was merely a sketch, the only one that was given a name, an identity. He was ‘Ray’. Not ‘The Long Nosed Kid’ or ‘The Hanged Bunny’

He asked sometimes if he had a purpose but the gallery walls never wrote him an answer. He eventually gave up on trying to find a meaning to his existence. On trying to keep himself energized. He's just a painting. A useless painting. He doesn't need to walk or move. None of his siblings need either. He wonders if things would be better if he asked someone to kill him but that idea didn't spark anything in him either.

.

The walls that trapped him in this abstract world got filled by scribbles once more.

‘Did you know? Did you know?’

Ray usually ignored when this happened, not liking how the gallery spoke. But his silence was met with impatience, soon, every single surface of the library was drowned in increasingly more violent scribbles of the same question. The agglomerate of words creeping _everywhere_ giving him a headache. Ray was too tired for this, caving in and asking the gallery “What?”

The previous writing vanished and the boy was forced to take a step back when his answer appeared from underneath his shoes ‘There are new roses in our garden.’

The writing turned blue, scribbled in crayon ‘A blue bud’ 

The writing turned orange, ‘An orange rose’

Ray felt something similar to hope and anger blossom at the news. He clenched his book tight enough to wrinkle the pages, aware only mama could paint new people “...Did Isabella come back?” 

‘No’

Oh.

...Of course.

Ray rested his head on the wall, mentally cursing the woman when the realization finally hit him. 

The gallery said rose. An orange _rose._

Roses symbolize life to the gallery. Humans. Guests.

Ray froze, stuck in this nightmare for what felt like years but still clearly remember what the books taught him. Of how to get out.

He glared at the walls, unbalanced by this abrupt opportunity but determined to take his chances “Where are they?”

The wall didn’t give him an answer. It existent writing disappearing, replacing it with random scribbles of ‘precious guests’ and ‘new friends’ but not offering a location.

Ray clicked his tongue at the useless gallery, walking down the hallways in search for flowers or humans. Telling everyone to find the humans and bring him their rose. 

He walked around the hallways with an energy he didn't even know he still had in him, eventually sprinting, running as fast as he could in search of his key to freedom, noticing a trail of orange petals along the way and stopped by the painting of the ‘Lady with Glasses’.

The painting was on the ground. The image of what was supposed to be a sleeping woman displaying a cheerful woman casually putting wrinkled orange petals on her green hair.

Despite the room being surrounded by petals, there were no dead bodies to be seen.

“Where did you found these petals?”

The smart painting tilted her head at the question, letting out unintelligible sounds and taking her hand out of her canvas, scratching her frame with her sharp nails, writing ‘Pretty petals from the pretty rose.’ The painting let out an inhuman noise before she started scratching her frame again, words more violent ‘BOy StoLE FroM Me! Need to Die! DiE! DIE!’

Ray frowned. So the boy was still alive.

“Where did he go?”

‘Doll room. Give me the flower, need moar petals. KiLL hiM!’

Ray nodded, not reacting when the woman smiled her crooked smile, stretching her big hand further out of her painting and messing with his hair. Her touch as dead as all of his other crazy siblings. 

.

Ray eyes widened when he opened the door to the next room, faced with broken sculptures and knocked over mannequins, cracked paintings, and damaged walls. He felt cold. marching to the knocked head of what he recognized as the remains of the biggest moving sculpture of Neverland with fear.

“...What happened?”

The cracked head trembled, trying to tell him something but unable to speak anymore. He wasn’t getting anything out of the head, so he asked the injured paintings. They blamed a woman with fiery green eyes and orange hair. 

They sounded terrified of her. 

Shit.

Humans were more dangerous than he expected.

Ray made a face, still determined to get out but certain attacking the woman to steal her flower would only end up with Ray limbs being broken as well. The Lady In Glasses wasn’t damaged so he’ll ignore this dangerous woman and target the boy.

The boy probably wouldn’t be easy either, he must be smart if he managed to steal the orange rose from the Lady With Glasses clutches, but he would be less dangerous.

“Did another human came here?” Ray asked.

His siblings told him about a boy. His target. He was just a kid, a weak one apparently, but he was being protected by this dangerous woman. If Ray tried to steal this boy’s flower the woman would kill him.

When asked about the flowers, Ray was surprised to learn the woman’s rose was orange and the boy’s blue. 

So the boy wasn’t saving himself. He was saving the woman from the Lady With Glasses.

If…

If Ray finds a way to help them. If he manages to trick them into thinking Ray was a kid too. A real person. He would be able to get their trust.

No need for an ambush that will very likely kill everyone, including himself. It would be much simpler to stick by their side and steal their flower with their trust. He just needs to make sure they don’t check behind his fringe. Come up with an excuse.

He felt nervous but it was worth a shot. Even if he got hurt he couldn’t let them go away. This ticket to freedom far too precious to be wasted.

Ray sneaked into one of the many secret corridors to reach the 'Woman With Braids’ painting, asking her to give him a flower from her aquarela garden. He watched her pluck a white rose and throw it into Ray’s hand, the flower becoming solid and realistic once it left her frame. Devoid of any aroma. Ray thanked his kind sister and got a small smile in return. It was a shaky and twisted smile but the Woman With Braids always had trouble moving her face to anything other than the pensive face she was given.

He put the fake flower on his fake hair and tucked his scarf tightly around his neck, covering Isabella’s signature. He walked to one of the galleries rooms that had a mirror to make his fringe even thicker than usual, smirking bitterly at him human appearance and blowing his fringe, happy it was thick enough to not get out of his face by any breeze.

With that out of the way, Ray headed towards the room where the book talking about Mama’s most valuable works resided. He flipped the book pages and ripped the one talking about ‘Ray’, shredding the paper to bits. He still felt paranoid however, placing the ripped pieces on his own portrait. The frame was empty since he hated to be stuck on the wall, so it had more than enough space to place the shredded page.

.

Ray walked around searching for a knife to protect himself when he heard footsteps nearby. Not crawling or dragging sounds, but human footsteps.

He panicked, still needing to find something useful to make these people trust him, to make the woman at least consider protecting him a beneficial idea instead of a burned.

The footsteps were right behind the door.

SHit, they were fast! He wouldn’t be able to cross the room before they barged in, and if he hid in a portrait the guests would know right away he wasn’t human. It would be impossible to pretend.

Ray was startled from his thoughts when someone slammed the door open, the aggressive action making him freeze in place, used to being the only artwork capable of opening doors. 

The woman in the doorway wasn’t very tall for an adult, her blue overalls childish, yellow shirt and a long red raincoat too colorful, but she looked down at him with a burning determination that made her seen unstoppable. Whatever fear she held pushed to the side in order to protect, quick to get in front of a pale boy and point a broken mannequin leg in his face, ready for a fight.

Ray stumbled to the ground, aware on some level that he looked like a human so he probably wouldn’t be killed right away, but still scared those green eyes would see right through him. Beat him up until his whole body was as smudged and useless as his left eye. 

_‘This was a terrible idea,’_ Ray thought, staring fixedly at the splashes of blue and yellow ink in the broken mannequin leg, wondering if his black ink would soon join them.

“A boy…?”

Ray eyes focused on the woman’s face once her confused voice broke the silence, watching green eyes stray to the fake white rose he dropped and widen in realization, fighting energy fading from her body “Oh shoot...I am so sorry!” She dropped the mannequin hand on the ground, sounding truly apologetic “When I heard noises coming from the room I thought it was another walking sculpture! I have been so jumpy recently, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She extended a hand covered in scratches and fresh injuries towards him, green eyes full of warm, voice softening “You came from the gallery as well, didn’t you? Are you okay, boy? Did you get hurt when you felt?”

“I am okay. I am just… Happy there’s someone else from the gallery here” Ray lied, getting a relieved smile and reluctantly accepting the hand he was offered, feeling goosebumps by how warm the woman hold was. Nostalgic.

He unconsciously held on tighter. 

When he caught himself he felt weird. Thankfully the woman didn’t seem to mind having a stranger cling to her hand, merely softening her smile and lightly squeezing his hand back. She looked less intimidating when she smiled. Pretty even.

“Here” The pale boy smiled gently at him, eyes full of kindness, offering his fake rose back "You nearly lost it”

“Thank you” He put the flower back in his hair, unsure how to proceed in the face of such a warm welcome. 

Guess an offering wasn’t necessary...

Maybe he should have approached them when they were closer to the exit. If their trust was so easy to gain, stealing a flower would require far less tricks than he expected.

Still, the woman’s flower was too high, she keeps her dying flower in her breast pocket. She also seemed way stronger than him. The pale boy would be easier. He just held onto his blue flower.

“My name is Norman” The boy with the sky in his eyes introduced himself, looking around the empty room and frowning “...Are you alone?”

Ray nodded, making both humans share worried looks. Their beauty and effortless change in expressions ironically made they look more like a masterpiece than the image Ray sees in the mirror.

“That must have been scary,” Norman said, his eyes overflowing with sympathy “I… I nearly died when I was alone.” He gave Ray a tentative smile, eyes softening when he looked up at the dangerous woman “But Emma protects me now.”

Ray slowly nodded, unsure how to reply to that. Emma crouched to his level, never once dropping her smile “I'll protect you too, little guy." Her eyes looked kind up close, more lively than enything he ever saw. He could tell right away this was someone capable of crying real tears "As Norman said, my name is Emma! What’s yours?”

“Ray” He opened and closed his mouth, a little skeptical by how easily they accepted him “ ...I don’t have anything to offer, are you sure I can stay with you two?”

“Of course!” Emma and Norman smiled at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You reached the end, nice! I know the gallery is confusing and this is just a huge introduction but I hope you enjoyed it, next chapter will be easier to follow!  
> I surprisingly have a vague plan for this fic. The next chapter will be Norman's POV and the last one Emma's POV. Hopefully, it will be a short little story! :D


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